Latest Pricing Trends Headlines

All the headlines from our Pricing Trends Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Prices Up Again in Q2 But Market Hardening May Be Moderating: The Council

Jul 24 2013 // Commercial property/casualty pricing continued to gently creep upwards in the second quarter, however signs of some moderating of increases also surfaced. The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers’ quarterly...

Investors See Travelers’ Cuts in Auto as Sign Rate Hikes Have Peaked

Jul 24 2013 // Travelers Cos.. Inc. said it would cut jobs and reduce prices of auto insurance, steps investors took as an indication that rates had risen too far and competition was increasing. The company’s shares fell 4 percent...

W.R. Berkley Q2 Profit Up 6%; Rates Up 6.5%; CEO Comments on Berkshire

Jul 23 2013 // W.R. Berkley Corp. reported $116 million net income for its 2013 second quarter, up more than 6 percent from $109 million net income posted one year ago. The net income for the first six months of 2013 came in at $233...

Florida’s Citizens Seeks Rate Hike, Sinkhole Increase Cap

Jul 22 2013 // Florida’s state-backed property insurer requested a statewide average 6.6 percent increase in homeowners’ rates along with a cap on sinkhole rate increases in three high-risk counties at between 20 percent and...

North Carolina Residual Market Issues $500 Million in Cat Bonds; Rate Hikes Go Into Effect

Jul 16 2013 // North Carolina’s two residual homeowners insurance markets have jointly issued $500 million in pre-event catastrophe bonds to ensure they have enough money on hand to quickly pay claims following hurricanes and other...

Coastal Lawmakers Seek Delays in Flood Insurance Changes, Rate Hikes

Jul 8 2013 // Just a year after Congress imposed significant changes in the government’s oft-criticized flood insurance program, howls of protest from homeowners facing higher premiums have coastal lawmakers pressing for delays...

Commercial Insurance Rates Up 5% Again in June: MarketScout

Jul 8 2013 // Increases for commercial property/casualty insurance rates in the United States were again about 5 percent during June, the fourth straight month at that pace. According to the latest composite index from MarketScout, all...

U.S. Property Cat Re Prices Down, Casualty Softening: Willis Re

Jul 2 2013 // Reinsurers are taking “robust defensive measures to maintain market positions recently eroded by new capital markets entrants,” with prices down 25 percent on some Florida property accounts, according to a new...

P/C Direct Premium Up Nearly 4.5% for All-Time Industry High

Jul 1 2013 // Direct premium growth for property/casualty insurance companies continues to increase. At year-end 2012, more than $523 billion of direct premium written (DPW) was reported, an all-time high for the industry. For 2012,...

Florida’s Citizens Seeks 6.6% Home Rate Hike; Cap on Sinkhole Rates in High-Risk Areas

Jun 27 2013 // Florida’s state-backed property insurer requested a statewide average 6.6 percent increase in homeowners’ rates along with a cap on sinkhole rate increases in three high-risk counties at between 20 percent and...

Swiss Re sigma Study Finds Global Insurance Premium Growth at 2.4%

Jun 26 2013 // Swiss Re’s latest sigma study reveals that “total global premiums written increased by 2.4 percent in real terms in 2012 to $4.613 trillion. Life premiums expanded by 2.3 percent unwinding some of the...

Rate Hikes on Agenda for Florida’s Citizens Insurance

Jun 24 2013 // Florida’s largest property insurer, already under fire for everything from recent business deals to how much it pays its executives, is readying another round of rate hikes for homeowners. The board of Citizens...

Auto Insurance Customer Satisfaction Drops Due to Rising Rates: J.D. Power

Jun 24 2013 // Due to rising insurance prices and some unhappiness with policy offerings, overall customer satisfaction with auto insurance companies is down in 2013 from an all-time high in 2012, but remains comparatively high relative...

Industry Group Opposes Massachusetts Proposal to Set Auto Labor Rates

Jun 21 2013 // The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies is opposing bills currently under consideration in Massachusetts that would require the state to set a minimum hourly labor rate that insurers must pay for auto...

Iowa Health Insurer to Seek Smaller Rate Hikes

Jun 19 2013 // Months after customers blasted the company for skyrocketing rates, Iowa’s dominant health insurer says it will limit premium increases in 2014 to less than six percent for individual and small business...

West Africa Piracy Endangering Commodities Shipping, Increasing Rates

Jun 18 2013 // Pirate attacks off West Africa’s mineral-rich Gulf of Guinea have almost doubled from last year and threaten to increase the costs and jeopardize the shipping of commodities from the region. The Gulf of Guinea, which...

Commercial Insurance Rates Up 5% Again in May: MarketScout

Jun 17 2013 // The average composite rate for commercial property/casualty insurance in the U.S. was up 5 percent for May 2013. This marks the third month in a row for a 5 percent increase, according to MarketScout’s analysis. By...

Commercial Insurance Rates Were Up 5% Again in May: MarketScout

Jun 5 2013 // The average composite rate for commercial property/casualty insurance in the U.S. was up five percent for May 2013. This marks the third month in a row for a five percent increase, according to MarketScout’s...

After Years of Increases, Florida Property Insurance Rates May Be Stabilizing

May 29 2013 // It’s been nearly eight years since Hurricane Wilma raked the southern end of Florida and caused billions in damages, the last of eight hurricanes to hit the state in 2004 and 2005. Yet even as the state has been...

Rockwood Decreases Agent E&O Rates in Massachusetts, California, Texas

May 7 2013 // Rockwood Programs has implemented underwriting guideline changes to its P&C Agents E&O program. The modifications will result in a rate decrease in the states of California, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Texas. The...